deserve to die.
He went into the shelter and returned with the yallin root. “Here.” He tossed it to Erlin. “Cut it in half and smear the juice on your feet and hands. Whose scent do they have?”
Erlin sniffed the root uncertainly. “What is this?”
“ It’ll mask your scent. Which of you do they follow?”
Sella patted her chest. Vaelin noted the silk scarf around her neck. He pointed at it, motioning for her to hand it over.
My mother’s, she protested.
“ Then she’ll be glad it saved your life.”
After a moment’s hesitation she undid the scarf and gave it to him. He tied it around his wrist.
“ This is disgusting!” Erlin complained smearing the yallin juice on his boots, face contorted at the pungent stench.
“ Dogs think so too,” Vaelin told him.
After Sella had anointed her own boots and hands he led them into the densest part of the surrounding woodland. There was a hollow a few hundred yards from the camp, deep enough to hide two people but offering little protection against expert eyes. Vaelin was hoping whoever hunted them wouldn’t get close enough to see it. When they had settled into the hollow he took the yallin root from Sella and smeared as much juice as he could squeeze from it on the surrounding ground and foliage.
“ Stay here, keep quiet. If you hear the dogs lie still, don’t run. If I don’t return in an hour head south for two days then circle west, follow the coast road north, stay out of the towns.”
He made to leave when Sella reached out to him, her hand hovering close to his. She seemed wary of touching him. Her eyes met his again, not questing this time, just bright with gratitude. He smiled back briefly and was gone, running full pelt towards the hunters. The sparse woods blurred around him, his hunger wracked body aching from the effort. He pushed his pains away and ran on, the scarf on his wrist trailing in the wind.
It took five long minutes of hard running before he heard the dogs, distant high pitched yelps growing into sharp threatening barks as they drew closer. Vaelin chose a defensible position atop a fallen birch trunk and quickly took the scarf from his wrist, tying it around his neck and tucking it out of sight. He waited, arrow notched tight to his bowstring, breath steaming as he dragged air into his lungs and fought the tremble from his limbs.
The dogs were on him quicker than he expected, three dark forms bursting from the undergrowth twenty yards away, snarling, yellow teeth flashing, churning snow as they sped towards him. Vaelin was momentarily shocked by the sight of them, they were an unfamiliar breed. Larger, faster and more thickly muscled than any other hunting dog he had seen. Even the Renfaelin hounds in the Order’s kennels seemed like pets in comparison. The worst thing was their eyes, glaring yellow, filled with hate, they seemed to glow with it as they closed on him, drool trailing from snarling maws.
His arrow took the first one in the throat, sending it tumbling into the snow with a surprised, piteous whine. He tried for another arrow but the second dog was on him before the shaft was clear of the quiver. It leapt, sharp nailed paws scrabbling at his chest, head angled to fix the flashing teeth on his neck. He rolled with the force of the lunge, letting his bow slip away, his right hand pulling the knife free from his belt to stab upwards as his back connected with the ground, the dog’s momentum helping bury the blade in its chest, punching through ribs and cartilage to find the heart, blood gouting from the mouth in a thick black spray. Fighting nausea, Vaelin put his boots under the twitching body and heaved it away, rolling upright, knife levelled at the third dog, ready for the charge.
It didn’t come.
The dog sat, ears flattened, head lowered near the ground, eyes averted. Whining, it raised its muscular form to edge closer then sat again, glancing at him with a strange, fearful but expectant expression.
“ You better be rich, boy,” a gruff, deeply angry voiced said. “You owe me for three dogs.”
Vaelin whirled, knife ready, finding a ragged, stocky man emerging from the bushes, his heaving chest indicating the hardship of running in the wake of the dogs. A sword of the Asraelin pattern was strapped across his back and he wore a soiled dark blue cloak.
“ Two dogs,” Vaelin said.
The man glowered and spat on the ground, reaching back to draw his sword in a practised easy movement. “These are Volarian slave-hounds, you little shit. The third’s no good to me now.” He came closer, his feet moving over the snow in a familiar dancing motion, sword point low, arm slightly bent.
The dog growled, a low menacing rumble. Vaelin risked a glance at it, expecting to find it advancing on him once again, but instead its yellow, hate filled gaze was fixed on the man with the sword, lips trembling over bared teeth.
“ You see!” the man shouted at Vaelin. “See what you’ve done? Four years to train these bastards in the shitter.”
It came to Vaelin then, a rush of recognition he should have felt as soon as the man appeared. He raised his left hand slowly, showing it to be empty, and reached inside his shirt to pull out his medallion, holding it up for the man to see. “My apologies, brother.”
Momentary confusion played over the man’s face, Vaelin realised he wasn’t puzzled at the sight of the medallion, he was calculating if he was still permitted to kill him even though he was of the Order. In the event the decision was made for him.
“ Sheath your sword, Makril,” said a strident, cultured voice. Vaelin turned as a horse and rider emerged from the trees. The sharp faced man on the horse nodded at him cordially as he guided his mount closer. It was a grey Asraelin hunter from the southlands, a long legged breed renowned for stamina rather than aggression. The man reined in a few feet away, looking down at Vaelin with what might have been genuine good will. Vaelin noted the colour of his cloak, black: the Fourth Order.
“ Good day to you, little brother,” the sharp faced man greeted him.
Vaelin nodded back, sheathing his knife. “And you, master.”
“ Master?” He smiled faintly. “I think not.” He glanced the remaining dog, now growling at him. “I fear we may have provided you an unwelcome companion, little brother.”
“ Companion?”
“ Volarian slave-hounds are an unusual breed. Savage beyond belief at times but possessed of a rigid hierarchical code. You killed this animal’s pack leader and the one who would have replaced him. Now he sees you as the pack leader. He’s too young to challenge you so instead will provide you with unswerving loyalty, for now.”
Vaelin looked at the dog seeing a snarling, drooling mass of muscle and teeth with an intricate web of scars on its snout and fur matted with mingled dirt and shit. “I don’t want it,” he said.
“ Too late for that, you little sod,” Makril muttered behind him.
“ Oh stop being so tiresome, Makril,” the sharp faced man admonished him. “You lost some dogs, we’ll get some more.” He bent down to offer Vaelin his hand. “Tendris Al Forne, brother of the Fourth Order and servant of the Council for Heretical Transgressions.”
“ Vaelin Al Sorna,” Vaelin shook the hand. “Novice Brother of the Sixth Order, awaiting confirmation.”
“ Yes, of course.” Tendris sat back in his saddle. “Test of the Wild is it?”
“ Yes, brother.”
“ I certainly don’t envy your Order’s tests.” Tendris offered a sympathetic smile. “Remember your tests, brother?” he asked Makril.
“ Only in my nightmares.” Makril was circling the clearing, eyes fixed on the ground, occasionally crouching to peer closely at a mark in the snow. Vaelin had seen Master Hutril do the same thing, but with considerably more grace. Hutril gave off an aura of calm reflection when he looked for tracks. Makril was a sharp contrast, constantly on the move, agitated, restless.
The crunch of hooves on snow heralded the arrival of three more brothers from the Fourth Order, all mounted on Asraelin hunters like Tendris, and possessing the hardy, weathered look of men who spent most of their lives on the hunt. They each greeted Vaelin with a brief wave when Tendris introduced him, before going off to scour the surrounding area. “They may have tracked through here,” Tendris told them. “The dogs must have scented something beyond a likely meal in our young brother here.”
“ May I ask what you’re searching for, brother?” Vaelin enquired.
